


The Source of Light

by mresundance



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Intimacy, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Scar touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 19:05:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13106589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mresundance/pseuds/mresundance
Summary: After the fall, Will and Hannibal settle in a remote cottage in Scotland. It is there that Will must contend with the present and the future, and what both mean to him, and to him and Hannibal.





	The Source of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the Radiance Anthology, 2017.

1\. The Fall

There is a garden; I can smell it. The moist earth, black as night. The sweet overture of honeysuckle, as from my childhood. The bone whiteness of the moon, and a cool lavender breeze. The salt on my lips isn’t blood, but sweat from working all day in the garden. And his hands, his huge hands aren’t stained with blood; they are planted on me like autumnal vines. Hannibal wraps around me like a Virginia creeper. I’m not suffocating. Maybe I am drowning, but the black sky and black world roar and rush around us and we’re soaked and bloody and this stony shore is barren in the moonlight.

 

2\. Wounds

A crescent moon curling through his pale skin, trailing silver. The snarling, gaping mouth of his wound slowly shutting, muffled by stitches.

“You’ll have to do the back, Will,” he says.

Shit. My training is rudimentary at best, and my own wounds gape. My shoulder opens and closes when I move it, and the one in my cheek gasps blood. All I can see in this dim place is shadows. And I’m supposed to sew him shut? I want him to sew me shut. To touch me with his surgeon’s hand and close my wounds, null the pain.

But in the black and red darkness, he looks at me with his chalk colored face.

He needs me.

I take the needle and thread and begin.

 

3\. Fugitives

We huddle in darkness and wait for the police to pass. Another night, then, running. Fleeing across fell and field and hoping morning finds us far enough away. Hannibal burns. The infection wants to set into his wound, his body. Dig itself deep enough it can’t be dislodged. The infection could be winning, ravaging his slender frame until his eyes go glassy and then shut. Leaving me with two bad shoulders and my fat swollen face, unable to talk.

Leaving me alone.

* * *

Rainwater tastes sweet, feels sweet, after days of sludgy creek and pond water. This far from the road, from cities and towns, it feels like a grand wilderness. Like Wolf Trap. No, it feels like the very end of the world, and Hannibal and I are the final survivors. If I kiss him now, with my stupidly swollen lips, it would be out of despair.

But what if -- if I do want to kiss him -- I want to kiss him and taste hope instead of despair. Hope like nectar, golden on the tongue.

* * *

His fever has broken. The swelling has gone down, enough that I can open both eyes. We have a place to sleep which is not some ditch or a dark wood with a bed of thistle and leafmeal. Though, I’m not sure this hotel is really that much of an improvement, with furniture that hasn’t been changed since the ‘70’s, carpet rank from cigarette smoke, and the family of seven thundering around next door.

No matter. We’re here, and for now we’re safe, and clean, and dry. Hannibal has a fake passport and will have one for me, though he won’t say how.

“I have my ways.”

Okay Dr. Mysterioso. But no matter. I could sit here, pressed against him from good shoulder to hip for contented years of our lives. If contentment is meant for us. If there is an us.

All that matters anymore is here, and now.

“You don’t want to know where we are going?” Hannibal asks.

I shake my head. Still too swollen to speak, and my stitches feel like fishbone stuck in my cheek.

His eyes twinkle ever so impishly.

“Scotland.”

He looks at me. He wants a reaction.

I shrug with my good shoulder.

I don’t know what else to say.

 

4\. Cottage

Florence. Paris. Cologne. Amsterdam. Barcelona, maybe even Athens or Heraklion. Someplace glittering and cosmopolitan, where old and new freely mingle. That’s where the FBI would expect to find us.

They would not expect to find us here, in northern Scotland, in this stone cottage with coarse wooden floors, stooping ceilings, and an old soot-blacked fireplace. It’s someplace you might expect to find me, actually, sitting by one of the warped windows in the lazy morning sunlight, binding feather to a new lure. Well, someone I used to be, at least. Someone who didn’t have healing knife wounds. Someone who hadn’t fallen off a cliff and died and risen from the foaming waves like a ragged and half drowned Venus. My whole body feels different. Scarred, yes. But also -- reborn.

Rebirth is like light shining through a shattered window.

The evening sky is broody with clouds and the earth is so wet it’s tender. There’s weed and a half collapsed fence where a garden should be. Vaguely damp wood is all we have and I’ve been coaxing it into an uneasy flame until my fingertips are soot-black. The wood smokes, it sputters, and then the fire hisses, dancing slowly, slowly.

I listen to the whisper of his footsteps through the little kitchen. The air still smells like roasted tomato and garlic, fresh basil. Of heavy beef, or, at least what I thought was beef. Of dough rolled and sliced. Something so simple tasted so good, rich and sweet and savory by all the right measure. His hands so firm and confident as he worked, the air crackling with fervor. It was watching a master paint.

Now the tap runs and those confident hands reach into the warm, soapy water. There’s a twinge in his side as he bends.

“Need help?”

My words come out funny still, navigating around the knot of healing flesh.

But his wounds were worse, far worse. He probably shouldn’t be lifting heavy pots, or cooking dinner, or bending over, or doing much but lying around.

“No. Sit so I can bring you dessert.”

I do like our couch here. Small but soft. I also like that there are two bedrooms.

A gently steaming mug, a sweet darkness and soft, floral scent.

“Lavender and hot chocolate?”

He smiles as he sits next to me with his own mug. He seems genuinely happy.

“It’s simple, it won’t hurt your wound, and it will warm us. Lavender will also help you sleep.”

“Trying to drug me?”

We both smile at that. I’m not really sure it’s funny.

The hot chocolate’s warm, but not too warm, not enough to burn. Though it does when a little oozes past my stitches. Ah well. It’s damn good hot chocolate.

He takes our empty mugs. The sound of water running again, of soap lathering. The wind outside moving against the windows. Hannibal humming “Gloria” echoing through the tiny kitchen and living room.

He folds his dish towel.

“I’m going to bed.”

I nod.

“ ‘Night, Hannibal.”

I’ll follow soon.

Hannibal, still humming, turns off the kitchen lights and passes. A ghostly warmth: his fingertips grazing the back of my neck.

Quiet.

Hot pin pricks all over as he stops at the dark entrance to the hallway.

“Goodnight, Will.”

He disappears.

 

5\. Honey

Like unearthing a sunken city: pulling up the felled fence, raking away dead leaves, yanking the weeds out. And beneath all this, the ground. Rich dark soil. Still brittle from winter cold, but pliable, as I cut it open with a spade and breathe the sweet smell. The budding tree leaves shiver and there’s a coolness to the wind that speaks of rain. Good rain, which will water the garden. There will be cucumbers here, in the corner. Carrots. Zucchini and tomatoes, certainly. Maybe a little cabbage, some parsnips and green onions. Of course Hannibal will have his herb garden, growing all the mint and basil and thyme and rosemary and anything else he desires and that I can lure from the ground.

First one drop, then another, and another. Dozens of others, and dozens upon dozens, until the air shines silver. Hannibal stands in the back doorway telling me to come in from the rain.

“You’ll catch cold, Will.”

“Okay, Dad.”

Hannibal puckers his lips in that way: a way which indicates he is not well pleased.

Ah well.

He’s right, though. I’m shivering when I finally clamber into the cottage. Shivering and damp.

He’s made up a plate of those cucumber sandwiches I like, and a pot of that dark Pu-erh tea. He’s setting them out on the coffee table, near the fireplace and smoldering coals.

There’s black earth under my nails, and soil in the creases of my hands. Best wash before I go touching sandwiches.

Hannibal’s breath against my shoulder.

“Don’t do that.”

“Jesus, Hannibal, do you understand personal space?”

That is a stupid question. Hannibal would sew us together if he had anything to say about it.

He takes my hands. He draws them to his face and breathes deep, his breath whispering over my skin.

He looks at me and his eyes are shiny, as if he’s going to cry. As if he’s not just sniffing my hands, enjoying the scent of my body mingled with the scent of the earth. As if he’s decided to weep on my naked feet, wipe them clean, and then anoint them with perfume.

He lets go of my hands and goes to pour the tea.

What can I even give him? What do I want to give him? From the bottom of my own heart, from the place of my own unknown devotion?

“Wait.”

I take his hand in mine.

He trembles, looking at me with confusion and hope. Like a flower his hand opens, palm up. I kiss the center, and it doesn’t taste like our sandwiches, or tea. It tastes sweet and bright as honey.

 

6\. Words

His words stop having form and weight. They are are smoke. They fall like ash.

Hannibal wants to talk about the past.

We won’t be finished with the past if we don’t deal with it in some way, he says.

But I am. Finished with it. I’ve moved on to here, now. A place of sunshine and silver moonlight and Hannibal napping -- napping! -- in his cosy chair by the fireplace. A place where knives murmur across cutting boards and not flesh, and Hannibal hums while I work in the garden. Earlier, he brought me lemonade in a chipped glass we found and I drank as though it were the cup of Christ.

All this richness, this life, and he wants to talk about the past. Dull and misshapen, full of grayness, full of a pale nothingness. Sometimes there was sunlight, or colors. Molly, purple and blue against a dead landscape. Walter, orange and green. Alana too, burning red. Even Jack, bursts of yellow. And the dogs -- a whole flock of colors speckling my days. That was it really. It wasn’t a bad life. But it’s gone now and that’s that.

I was born for something else. This -- this strange radiance taking shape inside of me like a host of fireflies.

And now Hannibal’s talking to me like I want my old life back, as if here, glorious here, and now, were not enough. As if he were not enough.

His lips move and bend. There is a wrinkle of anxiety in his voice.

He’s really worried I will actually leave him.

Fair enough. I haven’t exactly given him much in this . . . relationship . . . to convince him otherwise. My recent affections -- embraces, hand kisses, shoulder squeezes -- are nothing compared to all he’s given for me.

But he’s still talking and I’m sticky-sweaty. I need a drink and he follows me into the cottage, acutely helpless, hands at his sides with nothing to do. No food to cook, no instrument to play. No bodies to dismember.

I drink from the tap, just to hear his noise of dismay.

“Will,” he says. He’s still talking.

Oh what the hell.

His lips are warm and -- unexpectedly -- so yielding. He gives in to me like a flower gives in to the sun.

This is supposed to be a short kiss, a teasing peck to disarm him. I shove him against the wall and kiss him harder. We press together, bodies burning through our clothes. There’s only the sound of our frantic breathing.

 

7\. Shower

Golden dust motes dance as light pours through the skylight, turning him and the bathroom ivory.

He’s sullen.

“I would like to go someplace. Such as Edinburgh.”

I can just hear him over the hiss of the shower.

“Edinburgh is a ways away.”

“Only a three and a half hours.”

“Hey, you’re the one who had the brilliant idea to be here.”

The silence has the right kind of shape and texture to tell me he’s making a face.

Sigh.

Half the time being with him is like babysitting. Last time he pouted when I didn’t offer him a towel at the end of his shower.  
I’m surprised he hasn’t asked me for anything, his shadow crossing the shower curtain. Through a gap I see the specter of his bullet scar. An angry red and purple, though it healed weeks ago.

He could have died.

He has to let me in. So I can clamber right into that slippery tub, with the shower beating down on the both of us.

He’s naked, and my clothes are getting wet, but it doesn’t matter. I grab him. I hold him as though it’s the last time I will ever hold him. I’m shaking, and my breathing rasps loudly against the tiles while he stands still, and quiet.

“Will?” he whispers.

“Sssh.”

He is silent.

I pull him closer. He’s warm, so very warm, and full of light and life. Hannibal. My Hannibal. From now through the rest of our lives.

 

8\. Dreams

The pendulum no longer drops and swings. I don’t peel the thin skin of death back to see how her internal organs work. I stopped giving my life to her in that way.

No more visions, no more hallucinations. I don’t see what isn’t there. I see what is: no more, no less.

In their place are the migraines. Screaming things. They arrive without warning, an ax in the crown of my skull, smashing bone and brain until all I can do is lay trembling and trying not to throw up.

Hannibal’s room is darkest. He closes the storm shutters and draws the blinds and shuts the door gently so I don’t even hear it. I feel the darkness muffling me and my migraine. It’s almost pitch. And the sheets smell warm, of sandalwood. His smell. He didn’t used to smell like that, but he does in this new life of ours. And it’s the only smell that doesn’t make me vomit.

I bury myself deep in that smell, deep in the darkness like a womb where I dream of starlings and hearts, blood and rebirth. Afterwards, my head is always gummy with the residue of my dreams.

* * *

I sleep. I sleep and I dream. His hands whisper over me. He touches my forehead. He caresses my throat. I want to curl up inside of him, in his rib cage, and feel his heart flutter against my cheek.

The low rustle of sheets.

I roll over. My head still feels like shards put back together again, but the migraine is gone. It’s night, if only because Hannibal is here, gathering a pillow. I make a noise.

“Sorry to disturb you, Will.”

“Not disturbing me.”

Speaking is like being clawed by fish hooks.

“What are you doing?”

“I was going to go sleep in the living room.”

“On the sofa?”

“Yes, the sofa.”

He’s whispering, but he might as well be shouting.

“Don’t go. Stay.”

“Here?”

I nod, though I have no idea if he can even see me. I can’t see much of him.

Silence.

Rustling. The mattress dipping as he climbs into bed, the sandalwood scent burning brighter now.

“Can I touch you?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He reaches one arm around my waist, the hold firm and steadying. He presses us close, my back to his chest. The heat makes some of my exhaustion ease. His lips don’t hurt as he kisses me behind one ear.

“Are you alright, Will?”

“Yes,” I murmur.

He kisses my shoulder. Through my cotton t-shirt, his lips are warm.

“Goodnight, Will.”

“Goodnight, Hannibal.”

I fall asleep.

I dream of love. It’s tinged with blood and just as sweet.

 

9\. Scars

A cocoon. Sheets wrapped around us loosely. The afternoon air, golden and damp, wafting through the open windows. His hair turned amber in the slanting sunlight, my own skin a brown sugar hue. A sticky heat. He rolls and I watch his back muscles ripple beneath his shirt. He’s smiling.

“Hannibal?”

No answer.

“Are you asleep?”

“Perhaps.”

I laugh.

I put my hand on his belly and he practically purrs. It reminds me he is a predator, above all things. As tender as he can be, he is still the man who cut me open twice.

We’ve never spoken of those things. But those things have their own weight, their own bodies. And today I want to hear them speak. So I take my clothes off.

“Will?”

He blinks as though I’m a bright beam of sunlight. I am naked and afraid.

He holds me in his eyes. His gaze wafts downwards, from my face over my shoulders and chest, down, down. Stop. His gaze lingers on the jagged scar on my belly. He’s trembling as he reaches out and presses his thumb against it. He runs his thumb up and down the ragged cord of shiny skin.

He leans forward and kisses it.

We’re shaking and my hands are numb as I help him out of his clothes, as we kiss and touch each other. When he wraps his arms around me I feel the whisper of scars from the inside of his wrists.

Would I take these or any of my scars back? He’s touching the one on my forehead, murmuring something in Lithuanian.

No. I wouldn’t.

So I kiss the scar on the inside of his wrist and feel him shudder.

 

10\. Lights

Snakes of teal and gold winding across the chalk blue sky. The stars shine faint and the moon hangs wan behind the ink-black trees. The teal weakens and now there is a flash of peach in the night. I’ve never seen such a thing, though I’ve dreamed of this. I’ve yearned for it. And now my wish is here.

Hannibal is a shadow coming out of the cottage. In the darkness he drifts across the garden, neatly avoiding the vegetables and herbs.

“Ah,” he says when he notices what I’m looking at.

“I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights.”

He draws me close and puts his arms around me, his chin on my shoulder. The newly healed flesh tightens, on the edge of aching. It’s erotic, that near ache. And it’s erotic, having him so close while the lights dance above. It reminds me that here, now, I am alive. And this is all any of us ever has.

I move his hand low, lower, so he cups me through my underwear, so he can feel me, feel my desire for him in this moment. His breathing quickens and he caresses me, kissing the side of my neck, turning me around and kissing my lips and bearing us down to the earth, crushing the herb garden as we go. My head in a bed of mint, my back and shoulders swishing in the rosemary and basil as Hannibal and I move together.

My lips are swollen and there is earth in my hair. He’ll be too heavy in a few minutes, but for now I let him drape himself over me.

I look up at the lights and feel their golden glow in my body.

 

11\. The Fall (redux)

The leaves begin to redden and yellow around the edges, and the air is heavy with moisture, with cold. The nights are lengthening. The garden was cleared out long ago, all the vegetables harvested and taken to market (to market). The little cottage sold for a tidy sum, as they say, and now what few things we have are in suitcases.

“Shall we flip a coin?” Hannibal asks.

“Alright.”

“Heads we go to Granada, tails we go to Warsaw.”

He flips the coin.

No matter where we go, there we are.

* * *

There will be a garden, with earth black as a midwinter night. Vines winding up a trellis, perhaps. A creamy gold moon, and a warm wind blown in from the Mediterranean. The salt on my lips will be from the garden, from working and sweating in the garden. His hands, his beautiful hands will be planted on me, inside me, even, and there’s only joy and pleasure. I am moaning. I am laughing. The pale blue sky and golden ground will cradle us.


End file.
